Sheffield Doc/Fest is the place to be for anyone interested in where tech is taking, shaping or creating the story.
At this year’s festival there will be a focus on Artificial Intelligence and virtual reality at the Alternate Realities Summit on Sunday 12 June, which will include the world’s most social android (Bina48) and a new project from the USC Shoah Foundation entitled New Dimensions in Testimony (pictured) allowing you to have a ‘virtual conversation’ with a Holocaust survivor in real time. Cutting edge technology allowing those that engage to connect with an important part of history.
You can also catch We Wait, Aardman Animations’ first VR film, which takes the participator on a boat with a Syrian family in a desperate bid for survival. On top of that, the Summit audience will be the first in the world to view the latest United Nations VR Film via a synchronised viewing on the festival’s own custom cardboard viewers.
Lots of interactive and VR documentary projects will be on show at various exhibitions across three venues: the Interactive Exhibition at the Millennium Gallery, the Virtual Reality exhibition at the Site Gallery The Space and at the Union St café.
With regards to the film programme, the offer includes the EU premiere of the documentary Death by Design, the UK premiere of National Bird, the world premiere of Toucan Nation and There Will Be Water, in which we see British Engineer Bill Watts create fresh water from seawater.
On top of this there are a variety of talks and discussions on offer through the festival period, such as Love, War + Robots, which is an interview between transmedia producer and director Ramona Pringle, whose work focuses on the intersection of technology and the human condition. To find out more, check out the programme on the Sheffield Doc/Fest website here.
